04 / Field notes
Life & Notes
Attention is how an ordinary moment becomes worth keeping.
I am studying in Singapore. Outside the coursework, there are long walks, dinner plans, games and plenty of curiosity about technology and design.
These notes keep some of the everyday details: a classroom challenge, the ingredients already in the kitchen, and the small things that make an interface nicer to use.
SINGAPORE / 2026
Singapore, in several chapters.
From a NUS negotiation exercise to an afternoon in Bugis, with projects, ordinary days and creative work along the way.
SINGAPORE / FIELD NOTES
Keep the texture
of an ordinary day.
A grey sky, walks, dinner plans, a classroom tower, creative briefs, interface details and small tools I want to explore. A few small stories from life in Singapore.
The link you copy includes your search, topic and date order.
15 of 15 notes
Singapore / A question about making
What do I want to build with stronger tools?
Two questions from a NUS guest-speaker session on 22 October, revisited while continuing this website.
Singapore / Learning to listen
Leave room for the reply.
Two moments in October: a question in a NUS classroom, and a small change I began to notice in group conversations.
Life / Returning to a project
Ask what the data can answer.
After the Kopi presentation, I returned to the three management questions behind our three screens.
Life / A conversation in Bugis
S$25 to S$20. What changed besides the price?
A bag, two buyers and a conversation after class. Looking back at a small negotiation in Bugis on 5 March 2026.
Life / Making and revisiting
Give an idea enough shape to work with.
A lecturer, a shield and a classroom tower. Looking back at the small conditions that make an idea easier to develop.
Life / Cities and time
One moment, different ordinary days.
Singapore, Beijing and the cities where I studied. Comparing the sky brings a few familiar places into the same frame.
Life / Returning to a fight
A better question for the next pull.
Three ranged jobs, a familiar fight and the small decisions worth taking back into practice.
Life / Making work usable
What does the next person need?
A request, a project report and the information that needs to travel with a piece of work.
Life / Following Formula 1
Missing the live race, keeping the questions.
Sometimes class or a busy day gets in the way of the broadcast. I still want to understand how the race unfolded, not just where everyone finished.
Learning / Ideas to try
A small tool, starting with an interest.
FFXIV, Formula 1 and a question about making something useful. Notes from exploring what to build and what it might take.
Technology / Design
The details I keep coming back to.
Theme controls, readable small type and Chinese that sounds like Chinese. What building this site has made me notice.
Singapore / A question worth following
A grey sky, and a longer question.
A hazy-looking day in Singapore sent me back to a subject I had not thought about for a while: Beijing’s air.
Campus / Teamwork
A 21-centimetre tower.
Our group chose option 3A in a spaghetti-and-egg challenge and built a 21 cm structure. What I kept from the experience.
Everyday life / Food
Dinner starts with what is already there.
Tomatoes, eggs, butter and a few practical questions about portions. Notes from planning a meal.
Singapore / Everyday life
A city, one walk at a time.
Long walks, Sentosa days and a discussion about coconut shakes. A small piece of my Singapore routine.
MAKE A READING EDITION / A FEW NOTES, TOGETHER
Choose a few. Take them with you.
Choose and order public notes, then make a standalone HTML reading edition. The text stays in the file for offline reading; open it and use your browser’s Print command for a PDF. Original links and interactive tools remain online.
In your reading order
- 01What do I want to build with stronger tools?
- 02Leave room for the reply.
- 03Ask what the data can answer.
3 notes selected; complete texts in the selected language.
A shared link contains the public-note selection, order and edition. Downloaded text is a snapshot and does not update automatically.
FOLLOW THE NOTES / AT YOUR OWN PACE
Let the next note come to your reader.
Add the feed address to a reader that supports RSS and return when a new note appears. English and Chinese feeds are separate, with note text and links back to the original.
New to feeds?
The RSS link may display XML in your browser. Copy its address, choose Add feed in your reader and paste it there. The reader checks for updates; this site needs no email address or account.
The two language feeds update separately. If your reader supports JSON Feed, you can add its matching link above.
WORLDWIDE / ONE MOMENT
Another city. The same instant.
Start with six cities connected to my learning and work, or search worldwide in Chinese or English. Compare forecasts, daylight and the hours between them.
Open the city observatory ↗- Singapore1.35° / 103.82°
- Beijing39.90° / 116.40°
- Ithaca42.44° / -76.50°
- Bloomington39.17° / -86.53°
- Hangzhou30.27° / 120.16°
- Chengdu30.57° / 104.07°
CREATIVE NOTEBOOK / AI-ASSISTED FAN ART
Let a character become a scene.
A Hrothgar lecturer, a moonlit catfish mage and Manaward before the impact. Start with a role, then work through the costume, setting and the details that make it read.
Enter the creative notebook ↗
PLAY / ONE MORE LAYER
Now build something.
Build an eight-layer tower or untangle a signal circuit. Explore alignment and room for error, then try a puzzle of connected moves. Both offer room to think.
Choose a gameLJL / READING COMPANION
A term, an example, a way back.
Read a short explanation, connect it to a site example, then return to the question you were exploring.
Browse terms and examples3 terms in this pillar
3 matches
A concentration and an index need different labels.PM2.5 / PSI
Singapore publishes 1-hour PM2.5 concentration and 24-hour PSI. They use different quantities and time windows, so keep units, averaging periods and update times beside a value.
In a site example
A city-observatory weather symbol cannot stand in for an air-quality reading. Open the official NEA source when you want the local indicator definitions and their current published values.
Which quantity and averaging window does the number actually describe?
One instant can have several local dates.UTC / IANA time zone
UTC identifies the shared time reference; a named time zone supplies local calendar rules, including seasonal changes where applicable. A fixed offset alone does not describe every date in that zone.
In a site example
The city observatory puts several places beside the same instant. The fishing planner accepts UTC inputs and lets you change the result’s display zone without changing the scheduled instant.
Did the event move, or did you only change the clock used to display it?
A signed-in identity and a saved collection have different homes.Local records / Account session
The account service manages sign-in and discussion identity. This site’s reading positions, drafts and tool records are kept in browser storage, with explicit export and import for transfer.
In a site example
Signing out keeps your saved reading records. To move those records to another browser, review a reading-list import or use the encrypted workspace transfer in its own account-page section.
Where is this record stored, and which action would move it to another device?
LJL / WATCH · READ · EXPLORE
Let the view widen.
From an everyday route to urban greenery and the planet after dark.
Sources reviewed · Companion sources and viewing questionsNParksSG / EN
Look for the connections between green spaces.
NParks introduces Singapore’s City in Nature vision. Alongside the city observatory, it invites a closer look at how parks, neighbourhoods and everyday routes connect.
Where does greenery become part of a daily route rather than a separate destination?
NParks / Singapore, A City In NatureNASA / EN / 2017
The same planet, another way to see its cities.
NASA’s night-light video changes the scale of city observation. The satellite view offers a complement to weather, daylight and personal familiarity; brightness alone cannot describe the quality of a day on the ground.
What disappears when a lived city becomes a patch of light?
NASA Science / Earth at nightNEA Singapore / EN
Give the grey sky a measured companion.
The NEA haze site is a direct source for Singapore’s local haze information. Use the official indicators with their own definitions and update times; a weather symbol or a distant skyline does not measure the same thing.
Which indicator matches the question you are asking about the air?
NEA / Haze informationExternal video players connect only when requested, with autoplay off. Closing or switching removes the current player.